7. Revise
7.4 Results and next steps
Overview Introduction Steps in Revising Examples Results and Next Steps
Monitoring plans do not exist in a vacuum; they are designed to fill a need for information and guidance. Often they are part of some formal regulatory program, and the measure of their success will be based on how well they meet the needs of those programs. Results will need to be communicated to a variety of interested audiences.
• Periodic reports will need to document data and results so that procedures and conditions that affected monitoring are noted.
• An on-line data portal to monitoring results is now a common requirement for monitoring programs. This ensures rapid distribution of data for analysis and modeling.
• Such analysis and modeling of monitoring data will occur periodically and will illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the monitoring program.
• Formal regulatory review and decision making will further scrutinize aspects of the monitoring program.
• Peer-reviewed publications will be needed to report the design plan and results of the monitoring program to a larger scientific audience.
Successful monitoring programs will most often lead to new ideas and new goals. People are rarely satisfied with the status quo. In turn, this dissatisfaction will lead to new research and monitoring plans.
Conclusion
At this point, you have now gone through the seven essential steps for designing and implementing monitoring programs, as well as analyzing and reporting their results. You now have two options:
1. Revise some part of the first 6 steps by going back to one or more of them. Click on the appropriate step in the navigation bar at the top of this page. You can then revise any aspect of the first six steps and jump as needed to other steps or sections within them.
2. Alternatively, if you have no further revisions, then you are done! Proceed with implementing your monitoring program and best wishes for meeting your objectives.
We hope that you have found this Salmon Monitoring Advisor web site helpful and constructive in developing your monitoring program. In our experience, the long-term payoff will be large from carefully thinking about monitoring objectives early on and thoroughly evaluating the pros and cons of different designs for meeting those objectives. There will also be substantial benefits from following well-organized data collection and data management schemes, followed by appropriate analyses of data and effective communication of those results. By periodically reviewing the performance of the monitoring design against its goals and objectives, you will ensure that the monitoring program is contemporary, reliable, informative, and cost-effective. Good luck!
